Playing with Etoys

Etoys lets you give commands to graphics and other multimedia objects on the screen. Etoys offers you the chance to put a costume on an object and also tell the object what actions to take or what rules to follow. For example, you can change the instructions given to the car on the first screen and watch it respond to the changes, such as changing the last line, Car|bounce|silence to Car|bounce|motor. Can you guess the next action the car will take?

Paint a picture or take a picture with the camera and then create objects that work with it in the Etoys Activity.

Create objects of different weights and make rules to change how gravity works on each object.

Start the included tutorials by clicking Tutorials and Demos, or view example projects by clicking Gallery of Projects. Additional documentation is available at wiki.laptop.org/go/Etoys. 

What am I learning?

You are learning how to make an item respond to commands and react to the environment you create for it. You are making objects and giving the objects certain attributes and actions, which is similar to computer programming.

Why is this important?

Understanding how to make things helps you understand how systems work. In this simulated environment that you set up, you can test out ideas that you have about how the world around you works.